Two self-proclaimed anarchists said the government prosecuted them unfairly. Katie Olejnik, 23, and Matt Duran, 24, talked to KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter James Schugel for the first time since getting out of Seatac Federal Detention Center. They were supposed to tell a grand jury what they knew about Seattle’s May Day riots, including the names and political beliefs of people involved.

“They were like, ‘Do you know this person?'” Oljenik said, “and they would say a name, and I wasn’t going to answer. Then they started asking me about people’s political beliefs, and I couldn’t answer that in good conscience.”

“I believe in a lot of different ways of organizing, and that may be one thing somebody does,” Duran said. “But I can’t control what they do.”

Schugel asked Olejnik and Duran if the rioters did the right thing. “I can’t control anyone else’s actions,” Olejnik said. “This is going to sound really horrible, but I don’t really care what happened on May Day. I don’t have a strong opinion either way.”

Olejnik and Duran told Shugel that they think the government targeted them because they had jobs and a reason to give up information and stay out of prison. Now that they have been released, Olejnik is working, but Duran is looking for a job.

Olejnik and Duran said the horror they went through in small cells while in isolated confinement was well worth it to keep their secrets. The two could still be charged with criminal contempt of court and put back in prison.

“We could just be going on with our lives, moving forward, and it could happen at any minute,” Olejnik said.

Remember that it was a year ago on May 1st, 2012 that anarchists so dramatically attacked Seattle, a city built on two hundred years of desecration. Anarchists organized with the clear and almost theatrical intent of acting on our disgust, sadness, and love of freedom. The holiday was to be a public display, in broad business daylight as part of the anti-capitalist march. We gave ourselves that arena for communal empowerment, a ritualized demonstration to exhibit our beliefs and attack our enemy. It was on that day that we evoked the spirit of our ancestors and comrades, risking the Everyday to give a tradition that lights our lives on fire room to play.

Then the grand jury emerged. We knew this was coming, or at least were not surprised when news arrived of raids, warrants, and subpoenas. This is what they do; and so while it is not necessarily a common place event, it is by no means exceptional. The federal grand jury convening in seattle merely illustrates the omnipotent presence of the State, its surveillance of our lives and activities, and its corrosive efforts to detail our intimacies and dissolve our intensity. The year since then has been a transitional time, changing from an ongoing and active public anarchist presence to a time to strengthen individual resolve, commitment, practice and projectuality. What ways are we to live out our contempt of this world and desires for a different one?

Society and its multitude of adherents -Politicians, Workers, Scientists, Students, Patriots, Priests, the list goes on- must know the bedrock of our beliefs to be on the reality of Everything, and that a world we desire is only possible through the destruction of this one, of this society. Things are not separate, but are related in causal and chaotic relationships. In May Day 2012’s acts of destruction we found a joy so wholesome and liberating; in those moments the Spectacle was so entirely put to shame, laughed at for its very nature and absurdity. Attacking these somethings that both subtly and notoriously control and commodify our minds and bodies is, at times, the exact medicine we need.

What we believe is more ancient than the State and Society; their superficial ways crumble amidst the rumblings of our primordial calling. When we listen, as we have been doing in seattle and the pacific northwest, we hear the voices of our ancestors echoing in our ears, pulling us to unbending action and contempt. We know that when we fight, when we love and are conspiring, that we are doing so in ways that make sense with pre-colonial and uncivilized ways. The desire to have a life of integrated practice and ideology pushes us to great lengths. We do not feel absurd or perverse in our undertaking, as the media and politicians illustrate us to be. We are in this for real though and they are sorely mistaken to think otherwise.

The State’s activity is, again, no surprise; they want to end our lives and to erase our ideas; if the Beautiful Idea spreads, Society would suffer, and they can’t have that. The power of the State, concentrated and unnecessary in its expansive control, takes over the geography of our minds and bodies, and of our land. Society wants an end to wildness and freedom for it is specifically those things that cannot live in or alongside Society. Wildness and freedom, these longings that make us alive, that make us animal, that make us anarchist, are against Society. Society necessitates the domination of place, whereas wildness and freedom flourish in their place.

In this place, there is a lingering stench of History’s repression against dissenters, anarchists and otherwise. We can still smell the green scare, and even most recently catch wafts of its affects with the reemerging of long time underground resister, rebecca rubin. The State has historically, again and again, used whatever judicial, political, economic, and cultural means necessary to both repress and recuperate any and all dissent, variation, rebellion, or social dis-ease. Anarchy comes through our bodies, brought about by its impulses of spontaneity, rebellion, disgust, and laughter. What a comedy this world is to suppress such great things!

Consider using the anger, pain, and sadness you’ve experienced because of this wave of repression or because of the State and its affects as momentum to express solidarity and continue on with the Beautiful Idea. Let’s use this coordinated week of action for the much needed joy, perseverance, and defiance. Yatta Yatta Yatta, get out there, do something, it’s easy to attack!

Solidarity with Grand Jury Defiance! Solidarity with the Silent Ones! May Our Resolve Against Repression of All Forms Strengthen Our Complicity.

If you live in the Pacific Northwest, please come to the Federal Detention Center in Sea-Tac for a demonstration outside from 9-10am and again from 6-7pm. Publicize, come out, and bring your friends, and noisemakers! Dress for the weather and festivity.

If you live outside the area, consider planning a solidarity demonstration in your place or an event about grand juries and resistance. Use this current wave of repression to build an ocean of dissent; this struggle is predictable and merely an entry point into anti-prison, anti-state, and anti-social ideas and action.

Just before midnight, Monday Feb 25, we strolled over to the townhouses under construction on 24th and Norman in the Central District. After slipping inside, we set one ablaze. Oh what ease! Oh what fun!

Sustainable development is a myth that makes us sick. By furthering gentrification and ecological destruction, these buildings dress disaster up as progress, promising a “green” future that will never be.

Our attack was just one more opportunity to joyously reject the status quo. It was another attempt to shed the subjugated subjectivity forced upon us by Capital and the State. We act against civil society and its attempts at domestication. Fuck that shit.

Solidarity with Maddy, Kerry, and all the silent ones still facing repression by the Federal Grand Jury. We will not cower in fear. We will not remain docile in the face of State terror.

The fire still burns. With the news of the release of two of the three Grand Jury Resistors ( Matt and it warmed our hearts but also filled them with anger. The state has taken parts of their life they will never get back. We also have not forgotten about the third resister (Maddy) and all the other nameless ones.

So last night, we decided to send a message that the release of our comrades will not stop our attacks on financial infrastructure, government and all others who oppress and take away our freedom. An unsuspecting bank, CIBC, had a Molotov cocktail thrown at it. The flames brought new life to our minds and destruction to the bank and a sense of insecurity to the Vancouver Police and the banks investors that they will never be able to stop us and that our attacks will increase.

The fire will always burn. Last night, we let that fire burn a financial institution that profits off the lives of the workers and foreclosures of families homes. Let this inspire anarchists and other radical elements of Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory, to attack and to attack now. We cannot be stopped.

For months now, three courageous individuals—Matt Duran, Katherine Olejnik, and Maddy Pfeiffer—have been held captive in the Federal Detention Center in Seatac, Washington for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury currently underway in Washington state. Another person, Kerry Cunneen, has been subpoenaed but declines to appear. Convened in March of 2012, the grand jury is clearly intended to discourage anarchist activity, which has proliferated on the West Coast over the past few years.

In the following statement, we emphasize the urgency of offensive as well as defensive strategies, and present new support materials to draw attention to the grand jury resisters. This situation has been going on for many months now, but it’s important to renew public awareness on a regular basis. Continue reading →

In the opening weeks of February, 2013, we have removed and destroyed 17 security cameras throughout the Puget Sound region. This act is concrete sabotage against the system of surveillance and control. It is also a message of solidarity and a wish of strength to the Seattle Grand Jury Resisters, those currently incarcerated and those not. Finally, this act announces our participation in the game of CAMOVER, called for by comrades in Germany.